


little boy inside my chest

by yeeharley



Series: golden dandelions [1]
Category: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Origin Story, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Blood and Injury, Canonical Character Death, Car Accidents, Childhood Friends, Childhood Friends to Lovers, Childhood Trauma, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Gen, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Origin Story, Pre-Relationship, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Trauma, childhood friends to enemies to friends to lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-13 03:41:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29022129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yeeharley/pseuds/yeeharley
Summary: The curtains in Peter’s room are heavy and dark enough to block out any sun that fights its way through the thick leaves of the oak tree outside of his window, and there isn’t a minute that passes that he doesn’t want to tear them down.They’re too thick. Too rough. His room is always shrouded in shadow, no matter how sunny it is outside, and he’s not strong enough to pull the thick canvas aside so that he can see into his neighbors’ yard.He wants to be able to sit at his window and watch them play with their half-deflated soccer ball, the kids who live in the house to his right. Their walls are brick and mortar and moss and white chalk drawings that wash off in the rain, and their curtains are light- his window is right across from one of theirs- the little boy’s, he thinks.Blond-haired and blue-eyed and tall, both the boy and the girl (she’s younger than both her brother and Peter, he thinks, but probably not by too much) stare at him whenever he goes outside to watch the birds or play with his toy trucks.Aunt May and Uncle Ben call them the Keeners.
Relationships: (pre-relationship), Peter Parker & Harley Keener, Peter Parker/Harley Keener
Series: golden dandelions [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2129109
Comments: 12
Kudos: 74





	little boy inside my chest

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, everyone! This is the first work of my main project and (hopefully) magnum opus, the golden dandelions series I've been talking about on my tumblr for a while. If you'd like to get updates on my work, you can feel free to follow me over there (www.yeeharley.tumblr.com)! If you enjoy this fic, please leave a comment or a kudos and subscribe to the series to read the rest once I've posted it!! 
> 
> Thanks to peachy-keener for helping me brainstorm this and screaming with me (hi i love you dear), noemi for motivating me (i love you too), jaeda and lex for liking my dumb posts about not being able to pick the music for this fic (i also love you both), and pretty much all of the dumb dumbs, impravidus, and my other friends :) you all make this work worth doing and it's safe to assume that i love EVERY ONE of you.

Most people hate Mondays because they’re the conventional start of the working week- you get back to your job, your classes, the gray reality that happens to be your life, and you grind and grind away at the whetstone until you’ve ruined your hands and your mind and any purpose you aspired to have.

And that’s a perfectly good reason to hate Mondays.

Wasted potential does blow, after all.

But Peter Parker doesn’t hate Mondays because he has to go to school, or because he has to do homework, or because of the regular tests and quizzes and bullies and mean girls.

No.

Peter Parker hates Mondays because Mary and Richard Parker board a Southwest Airlines plane bound for New York City from Tennessee on a Monday, chasing a business venture doomed to fail from lack of funds or bad marketing or any of the other numerous reasons Peter’s heard shouted from the kitchen when he wasn’t supposed to be listening.

Mary and Richard Parker board that Southwest Airlines plane and wave goodbye from the windows as Peter watches with Aunt May and Uncle Ben holding his hand.

Mary and Richard Parker board that Southwest Airlines plane and wave goodbye and die and _leave him._

Peter is seven years old. He wears overalls that he can’t button on his own, doesn’t know how to peel a banana without breaking the stem, and has to ask Aunt May to open his car door because he can’t lift himself into his seat.

Peter is seven years old, and he is already angry.

\- ☁ -

Most people love Mondays because they feel like they can get a fresh start- you go back to school and keep your grades up, earn enough money to support your friends and family, get out of the house for a little while and see your friends. It feels like a dewy morning after a thunderstorm that raged all night, the sun creeping over the horizon and casting gold threads over the freshly-mowed fields farmers use to store their haybales.

All perfectly good reasons to love Mondays- after all, doesn’t everyone enjoy the feeling of a new start?

But Harley Keener doesn’t love Mondays because he gets to go to school, or because he has a job, or because he gets to see his friends.

Nah.

Harley Keener loves Mondays because he gets to leave his stupid little brick-walled house with their beat-up Cadillac and their garage door that’s begging to be repainted and the angry, grasping, lined palms that grip the neck of brown bottles and pound holes into the drywall in the living room and grab at Macy’s shoulders.

He gets to stay away from Johnathan H. Keener, and any moment spent far, far away from that man is a moment filled with unspeakable joy.

Harley is eight years old. He hasn’t lost all of his baby teeth, still has to use phonetics to sound out big words, and knows that, above all other things, Jonathan H. Keener is to be respected and obeyed.

Harley is eight years old, and he is already tired.

\- ☁ -

The curtains in Peter’s room are heavy and dark enough to block out any sun that fights its way through the thick leaves of the oak tree outside of his window, and there isn’t a minute that passes that he doesn’t want to tear them down.

They’re too thick. Too rough. His room is always shrouded in shadow, no matter how sunny it is outside, and he’s not strong enough to pull the thick canvas aside so that he can see into his neighbors’ yard.

He wants to be able to sit at his window and watch them play with their half-deflated soccer ball, the kids who live in the house to his right. Their walls are brick and mortar and moss and white chalk drawings that wash off in the rain, and their curtains are light- his window is right across from one of theirs- the little boy’s, he thinks.

Blond-haired and blue-eyed and tall, both the boy and the girl (she’s younger than both her brother and Peter, he thinks, but probably not by too much) stare at him whenever he goes outside to watch the birds or play with his toy trucks.

Aunt May and Uncle Ben call them the Keeners. 

Peter’s only seen their mom and dad once or twice each, and never at the same time; they don’t seem to go places as a family like Peter does with May and Ben. Miss Keener looks like the little girl, all freckles and white teeth and hands like Peter’s mom’s- small and dainty, a wedding ring on the left.

Mister Keener looks like the little boy. Tall and pale and curly-haired.

There’s something different in his eyes, though.

Peter doesn’t like Mister Keener very much. Neither do May and Ben; they tell him not to go into the Keener yard or play with their kids or ask for sugar when they run out on baking days, even though Miss Keener works at the bakery in town and has to have more than enough.

So Peter doesn’t go into their yard, or play with their kids, or ask for sugar- instead, he peeks through his curtains, staying close to the sill so they don’t see, and watches as the boy and the girl kick their ball around and flatten flowers and play with their big, spotted dog and laugh when the other falls before helping them up.

Peter watches, and as he watches, he’s overcome with this deafening sense of loneliness.

_(Why can’ I go play with ‘em?)_

_(It’s not allowed, Peter. Go work on your drawings.)_

_(Aun’ May-)_

_(It’s not_ allowed. _Go play somewhere else.)_

\- ☁ -

The boy moves into the house with white paint and blue window dressings the day after Harley’s big math test (he gets a ninety-seven, obviously, beause he studies and works hard and makes sure he gets good grades like Macy says because that means he can get a good job when he’s older and make money like Dad).

He watches from behind the chain-link fence that circles around his backyard, dividing them from the copse of pine trees that he’s not allowed to go into. Abby stands beside him with her thumb tucked into her mouth and one of her hands gripping his.

Her nails are jagged. Bitten raw.

She’s six and stressed like Macy, and he’s eight and sad like Dad, and they make for quite the sad pairing.

Bobby starts barking as soon as the jeep covered in chipped yellow paint pulls up in his neighbors’ driveway, the tags on his collar jangling as he bares his teeth. In an attempt to keep him quiet, Harley strokes his hand over the dog’s neck, glancing back toward the house to see if Dad’s heard (he’s probably asleep with all of his brown glass bottles stacked up on his bedside table and his muddy boots on the floor for Macy to clean).

Missus May and Mister Ben step out of their house- the little bell on their doorknob rings, just like it always does, quiet and happy- before crossing their driveway and opening the driver’s door. Someone Harley doesn’t recognize steps out, pulls Missus May into a hug, then Mister Ben, and gets back into the car.

They look like they’re crying.

Abby pulls her thumb out of her mouth, wipes it off on her pink t-shirt, and sticks it back in with a little blink. Harley wonders if the frog he’d found earlier is still in the picket of his dirty shorts. Checks, wrinkling up his nose when he sees that it’s not, and shoves his hand in to see if his pebbles survived their last run in the washing machine.

(They didn’t. In fact, they’ll be the cause of the next broken dryer, all caught in the filter, and when Dad finds them, it’ll earn Harley a slap to the ear.)

Abby tugs on Harley’s hand, jerking her head toward the jeep so that her pigtails bounce in their rubber-band prisons. He turns back to watch, still holding Bobby’s collar, as Mister Ben reaches into the back door and pulls out a suitcase covered in what looks like duck stickers.

A head of brown hair follows, lifted into Missus May’s arms. The boy is wearing a Paw Patrol t-shirt that Harley recognizes- some of the other kids in his grade at school have them. His bare feet are kicking into thin air, and he looks like he’s crying just like Mister Ben and Missus May.

Harley and Abby don’t get to see any more, because Macy calls them both inside, voice hushed to avoid waking Dad, and they know better than to argue at this point.

The last thing he sees, twisting around at the last minute to catch a final glimpse of the Parkers, is a pair of wide brown eyes locking onto his.

The door closes.

\- ☁ -

“Saw tha’ boy at school t’day.”

Harley blinks, looking up from his homework- triple digit addition, way too easy for him, he’s going to get a _great_ grade on this assignment. Abby stares back at him, eyebrow cocked. One of her stick-on earrings looks like it’s about to fall off. He reaches out to fix it.

Macy won’t let her get her ears pierced until she’s ten.

_(He kind of wants to get his pierced, too, but he knows what Dad would say to that- ‘What, you wanna be a girl? Is that what you want? Should I buy you a skirt, too?- so he’s much too afraid to ask.)_

“What boy?” He asks. The loose tooth on the left side of his mouth jiggles when his tongue brushes up against it; he thinks it’ll fall out soon.

Abby points her finger, coated in chipped blue nail polish, in the general direction of the Parkers’ house. “Tha’ one. He’s in the grade ‘bove me.”

Harley’s heart jumps, but he hides it, looking back down to his paper. 

He’d like a friend very much. It’d be nice to have that friend be his neighbor- it’d be like having a brother!

He asks, “What’s his name?” 

It takes a lot of work to keep the interest out of his voice.

Abby shrugs, biting at the tip of her index finger. _She’s going to have nail polish all over her teeth,_ Harley thinks absently.

“Think it’s Pe’er.”

“Peter?”

“Pe-der.”

“Peter.”

She still can’t seem to pronounce words right- maybe it’s her lack of her left front tooth, lost in a choice encounter with a soccer ball. Could just be the fact that she’s still young (of course, Harley could actually enunciate his syllables when he was her age, but apparently- according to Macy, at least- he’s always been smart).

_Peter Parker._

That’s a good name, Harley thinks. Obviously not as good as Harley Keener- nothing can top the way his name sounds, in his opinion- but it’s still good. He likes the way both of Peter’s names start with the same letter.

\- ☁ -

There’s one elementary school in Rose Hill, Tennessee, and Peter doesn’t even technically _live_ in Rose Hill- he’s on the outskirts, officially out in the country, in his tiny little house with the rosebushes out front and the school bus that drives past once a day at five-thirty.

The drive into town is a long one, filled with rolling green hills and fields of barley and wheat and scattered haybales bigger than May’s car. It’s very different than the one that Peter’s used to; Mom and Dad’s house had been in Nashville, and he had lived deep in the city in what Dad called a studio apartment. He’s not used to this color, to the natural arrangement of things, to the cows outlined against the rising sun as he peers out of the window of his spot in the back of the bus where the big kids leave him alone.

Because there’s only one elementary school, all of the kids in the town and surrounding area know each other. He’s the exception, of course, and because the butterflies in the pit of his stomach keep him rooted in his seat, he hasn’t met anybody yet.

He’s too scared to approach anyone, and nobody seems to be willing to approach him.

That all changes on a humid, dark morning, when Peter boards the bus just like he always does and makes his way to the always-empty seat that he’s claimed as his own using a wad of chewed-up bubblegum stuck to the backrest. He sits down, adjusting his glasses when they slip, and hugs his backpack close to his chest, ready to fall asleep for the next hour or so before he gets to school.

This time, though, a head of blond curls pops up over the headrest of the seat in front of him with no warning. Peter jumps, startled, and stares up at the face of the Keener boy, who stares back with narrow eyes. He has a little snaggletooth, poking out from between his lips, probably ready to come out by now. Peter doesn’t like to look at it. It makes him feel queasy.

The boy watches him for a moment, arms slung over the seat so that they’re hanging down in front of Peter’s knees. In the low glow of the overhead lights, he can see a little red mark on his cheekbone, standing out against his pale skin.

“I like your glasses,” the Keener boy says plainly, jabbing a finger at their thick frames. 

Peter blinks.

“Thanks.” 

There’s a pregnant pause, both boys staring at each other in the early morning light. Peter fidgets with the strap of his backpack and bites his lip. The boy sticks his finger into a hole in the back of his own seat and pulls out a wispy bit of stuffing.

“Your tooth’s ‘boutta fall out.”

“I know.”

Without warning, the Keener boy hops over the seat and into the one beside Peter, slinging his legs into the center aisle like a spider- he has very long, skinny legs and big feet, if the size of his ripped-up converse are anything to go by. Peter’s still wearing velcro shoes. He can’t tie his laces.

The hand that enters his line of sight is big and blurry, so close to his nose that Peter can’t focus on it. He leans back, reaches out with his own, and shakes it. The fingers that wrap around his are spindly, just like the boy’s legs. A bit of dirt on his finger rubs off onto Peter’s.

“I’m Harley Keener,” the boy- Harley- says. He blinks expectantly at Peter.

“Peter Parker.”

“I know.”

Harley drags his heavy backpack into Peter’s row and slumps down against his seat, grinning lazily. His loose tooth is bleeding; when Peter points it out, he just shrugs and sticks his finger into his mouth to check for himself. Smears the blood onto his cargo shorts.

Peter wrinkles his nose, slides down into his seat, and falls asleep.

\- ☁ -

_Peter Parker, Harley learns, likes dinosaurs more than aliens, princes and princesses more than policemen and firefighters, and toy cars more than power rangers. He likes reading big books with hard words that are hard for him to understand because they give him a challenge- just like Harley- and doesn’t like drawing because he can’t focus hard enough to draw straight lines. He gets bored easily, can’t stop moving his left leg, and has broken the bridge of his glasses four times._

_Harley Keener, Peter learns, wants to be an astronaut when he grows up. His favorite bird is a sparrow (‘cause they’re everywhere and I think they hop kinda funny) and he spends hours sitting at his window and watching them jump around on the cracked, abused pavement in front of his house. He likes cars more than power rangers, too, but only the brightly-colored ones and only if they have racing stripes on them. He gets mad if he can’t do his homework quickly and has a hard time sitting still, just like Peter._

That’s all they learn.

That’s all they have _time_ to learn.

\- ☁ -

Ben works in town at one of the bars on the main street of Rose Hill- not that that says much, because there are barely ten big streets interconnected with each other, so few that Peter could probably figure out where everything is without having to do that much thinking.

It’s a squat little building, with the windows covered in bright, glowing signs that hurt Peter’s eyes and big cars that make loud noises and squirt mud beneath their tires. The mortar packed into the bricks is all chipped and messy. He doesn’t think it was built very well in the first place.

Maybe it’s just old.

Peter’s not allowed into the bar itself because Ben says he’s too young- he doesn’t really understand that, because it’s just a _building_. When Ben picks him up from aftercare on Wednesdays and Fridays, though, he always has to go back by the bar to pick up any tips he’s made. Peter gets to sit in the passenger seat because Ben drives a truck and he can’t sit in the back by himself. He’ll watch as his uncle walks into the building, bypassing the neon signs, and comes back out with a thicker wallet than before.

Peter loves Wednesdays and Fridays. He loves being with Ben. He loves May, too, of course, but she works in the nearest city at a hospital when he’s in aftercare and she can’t pick him up. Her drive home is much too long.

This is when things change.

It’s a Friday, around three weeks after Peter’d moved in with May and Ben, and as usual, he’s sitting in the passenger seat of the latter’s truck with a juice box in one hand and his reading homework in the other. 

The lights from the bar windows are bright enough to act as a flashlight, turning the pages all purple and blue and pink so that he has to squint a bit to differentiate the words from each other. They’re reflecting off of the lenses of his glasses, too, and he can’t take them off, so he’s doing his best to read through _Aesop’s Fables_. 

He doesn’t want to do homework over the weekend. Harley wants to come over and play with his trucks, and if he has to read, he won’t be able to.

A pair of men stumble through the front door, leaning heavily on each other so that their feet drag against the sidewalk. One of them looks familiar- blond hair, the neck of a shiny bottle trapped in one large fist. Peter tilts his head to one side to try and see the man’s face, but he’s laughing so hard that he can’t make out any features and it seems like too much work, so he goes back to his fables and tries to block out the sound of raucous laughter from the sidewalk.

He wants Ben to come back now. Doesn’t like it when the men get loud.

It takes a few minutes for the man in question to slip through the door and unlock the car. When he slides into his seat, Peter gives a happy sigh of relief and grins, putting his juice box down so that he can wave at Ben- as if he hasn’t already greeted him.

“Hi,” he chirps, waving his book like a flag. “Workin’ on my readin’.”

Ben laughs. Peter doesn’t know why.

He says, “Good job, kiddo,” before shoving his key into the ignition. 

The truck rumbles to life beneath Peter. Purrs like a cat. He wriggles happily as they wheel out of the parking lot and pull off into the main road, then a side road lined by little painted houses, and then the country roads that have become so familiar to him.

“Can you play music?” Peter asks. He’s done with his reading, so there’s no reason for him to have to focus any more.

Ben clicks a button on the dashboard. The glow that lights up the cab is soft, not like the lights of the bar. It’s gentler on Peter’s eyes- gentle enough that he’s able to take his glasses off and set them on the median as the first few soft bars of music fill the truck.

_“You must remember this_

_A kiss is still a kiss_

_A sigh is just a sigh_

_The fundamental things apply”_

_As time goes by._

“I like this one,” Peter says matter-of-factly, pulling his knees up to cradle them against his chest. “It’s pretty.”

Ben smiles at him, and just like Peter knew he would, starts to sing.

He loves it when Ben sings. He doesn’t have a great voice- not like the man on the radio- but in his opinion, it’s pretty much the best one ever.

 _“And when two lovers woo-”_ Ben rolls his eyes when he says _woo_ , trilling the note a bit to make Peter laugh, _“They say ‘I love you’, on that you can rely.”_

Ben’s laughing now, too, because his voice cracks when he tries to sing too high and Peter snorts so hard he drops his juicebox and spills it all over his jeans and it’s so quiet and peaceful and happy.

He sees the white light of the dashboard and the smile on Ben’s face. 

He doesn’t see the deer.

_Ben does._

It’s quick; when Peter looks back on this moment years from now, sees it in every waking moment and every nightmare he has, he won’t be able to remember the crunching sound the fender of the car makes when it hits a pine tree growing just off of the side of the road, right on the other side of the ditch. He won’t remember the shattering of the glass or the way a branch poked through the front window so close to his head that he could feel the needles pricking his skin.

All he’ll remember is the harsh swerve of the car, the jerk of the steering wheel, and the hand splayed across his chest that pressed him into the back of his seat and kept him from being thrown into the dashboard.

_The airbags never went off._

Peter blinks the dark spots out of his eyes, reaching up to rub at his forehead with shaking hands. His heart is beating faster than it ever has before- faster than when he’s running, even- and he can hardly breathe because of the way his seatbelt is snapped tight against his chest.

_“As time goes by…”_

The radio is still playing into the silent night, still lit up, still casting a glow around the cab of Ben’s truck. Peter blinks again as Jimmy Durante croons out another line.

Furrows his brow.

Other than the sound of groaning metal, he can’t hear anything.

“Ben?”

His voice is shaking. Too quiet.

_“B-Ben?”_

There’s no answer.

_“It’s still the same old story…”_

Slowly, carefully, wincing as the seatbelt rubs up against his neck, Peter turns to face the drivers seat. There’s not much light being cast over there- it’s mostly dark, almost to the point where he can’t see anything, but as Peter’s eyes focus up a bit, he’s able to make out a blurry shape.

He needs his glasses.

_He needs his glasses._

Fumbling in the dark, Peter’s fingers slide over broken glass from the windshield as he gropes around on the median where he set them down. It takes him a few minutes to find them- slides them onto his nose once he has, wincing at the crack in the left lens- and turns to look at Ben’s side of the car.

_“A fight for love and glory…”_

Peter screams.

When he was six, still living with Mom and Dad, he had fallen and scraped his knee running after a flyaway kite. It had been torn up pretty badly- at least, in his opinion- and by the time they had gotten home, he had been wailing in pain. There’d been blood soaked all the way through his pants, and to him, it had been such a catastrophic event that he’d thought he was going to die.

That’s nothing compared to this.

Ben is slumped over the steering wheel, his head leaned up against its side, tucked into the spot between the turn signal and the windshield- the latter of which is shattered and spattered with red. There’s glass all over the dash, in his seat, _in his hair._

He’s looking at Peter.

His eyes are open.

Empty.

Peter Parker has lost people before, but never in his life has he more intimately known death.

_“A case of do or die.”_

\- ☁ -

Harley’s sitting on the couch in the living room when Macy comes out of her bedroom, face pale and drawn, and he knows something’s wrong.

He’s been doing his homework for the last half hour so he can go over to Peter’s house tomorrow- apparently he has this really cool dump truck with wheels that make funny clicking sounds, and Harley wants nothing more than to see how much he can fit in the back of it. His math is getting harder, and he’s having to work more to keep up, but he thinks he deserves to be able to see a friend after being so committed to school all week. 

Macy’s been on the phone for a few minutes. She had left the room to talk to whoever it was, and Harley never eavesdropped. 

That was how you learned things you didn’t want to know.

_He’s learned not to peak around corners when voices are raised and tempers are high, because when Macy’s mad and Dad’s mad and Abby’s crying, the only thing that Harley can get is scared._

_He doesn’t like being scared._

But this time, he can tell she isn’t talking to Dad, who’d taken the truck into town for the night without telling anyone where he was going. When he’s on the phone, she sounds nervous and jumpy. _Like a frog,_ Harley thinks, leaning around the doorframe to stare at where Macy’s pacing next to the spinning, shaking dryer.

“- workin’ in the city,” she finishes, turned toward the chipped window that leans toward the apple tree in their backyard. “There’s no way she’ll be back in time.”

There’s a long pause- Macy’s probably listening to whoever’s on the other end of their landline. Harley thinks hard, trying to figure out who _she_ could be. Comes up dry.

Macy snaps, “I _know_ that, but- no, _no,_ don’t try that shit with me, Jeanine.”

Another pause.

“ _Jeanine,_ I _know_ he doesn’t have anyone else- you know what? _Fine._ I’ll go pick- _I said I’d go pick ‘im up,_ alright?”

Jeanine Matthews works on the PTA at Harley’s school; she’s all prissy and frustrating and she walks around in shoes far too high for the gravel roads of Rose Hill. Her nose is always turned up, just like those of her kids (Harley knows he’s lucky he’s never been in Brittney or Brett’s classes, because his classmates say they’re super annoying).

He wonders why Macy’s talking to _her._

WIthout a warning, she slams the receiver down onto its port and whirls around. Harley flinches as her hand hits the dryer with a metallic claim, cowers back against the door. He hasn’t sucked his thumb since he was four, but part of him wants to stick it right back into his mouth so he has something other than the expression on her face to focus on.

Macy looks- she looks really _sad_. Sadder than she’s ever looked, even when she was fighting with Dad.

“Momma?” He says, gripping the chipped wood so hard that it digs into the skin of his fingertips. “What’s wrong?”

Maybe it’s just the nighttime light, but Harley thinks he can see tears gathering in the corners of her eyes, as bright and shimmery as the rhinestones that Abby likes to put on her cheeks.

Macy hastily reaches up to wipe them away. 

_As if getting rid of them can make it like they were never there,_ Harley scoffs. He’s _smart._ He can _tell_ she’s crying.

“I have to go, honey,” she says, sniffing quietly. The smile that stretches across her lips is as fake as the ones on the doctors at the hospital Harley had to go to when he cut himself falling in their driveway.

“Go _where?_ ”

She winces. 

“I’ll be back soon.”

“ _Go where?”_ Harley repeats, this time more demanding. He wants answers, he _needs answers._ She can’t leave without him _knowing_ where she’s going.

But Macy just shakes her head, plants a kiss on the crown of his head, and walks out of the front door with orders to stay inside and watch Abby and not let anyone else in.

So Harley waits.

And he waits.

And he _waits._

He waits on the couch, goes through Macy’s home decoration magazines until he gets bored of seeing the same blue-striped pillows and dull gray blankets over and over and over again. Switches to looking at some of his homework. Decides he doesn’t want to do it- he’s too nervous to see when she’ll get home, why she left, if something’s wrong.

He makes himself mac and cheese with parmesan cheese nearing its expiration date and eats it with one of the plastic forks beneath the sink.

He checks on Abby, still asleep in her room with her Winnie the Pooh stuffed under her chin and drool pooling on the comforter.

Eats the remnants of a can of peaches- well, drinks them, because he doesn’t want to use a spoon and have to do the dishes.

It’s almost ten at night, far past Harley’s bedtime, when he checks the clock next and decides that it’s time for him to go ahead and go to bed. She’ll show up eventually, right? She always comes back. 

That’s what parents are supposed to do.

Harley is halfway down the hall that leads to his room, already deciding what he’s going to sleep in for the night- his dinosaur pajamas- when the front door creaks open and a pair of quiet voices filter through the living room.

And he _recognizes them._

Macy.

Macy and _Peter._

Sock feet slapping up against the pilled carpet, Harley rushes back into the entryway and skids to a halt, heart racing. Macy’s in the process of pulling off her coat and hanging it up, and she looks okay, but Harley has eyes only for the boy clinging to her left leg and absolutely _sobbing_ into the denim fabric of her jeans.

Peter’s hair had always been bouncy and shiny under their warm lights, but now, it’s utterly unrecognizable- limp and flat against his head, like he’s taken a shower. His arms are cut up, covered in band-aids, and his _shirt-_

The cut that Harley had gotten falling in the Keener driveway had bled enough to need stitches. He’d never minded blood very much, but there had been _so much of it_ that he’d cried only looking at it, even through his leg hadn’t hurt very much.

There’s enough blood on Peter’s blue Star Wars shirt to make him want to be sick.

Harley rushes across the foyer as fast as his legs can carry him, eyes fixed on the shaking back of his now-best-friend, and _throws_ his arms around his shoulders before squeezing him tight. This is what Macy does when he’s sad, and what he does for Abby- he can do it for Peter, too, right?

Peter transfers over to Harley’s grip easily enough, leaning his head against the sleeve of his shirt. The fabric soaks through with his tears, cold and uncomfortable and sticking to his skin, but he doesn’t move, doesn’t budge.

Peter’s shaking.

There’s going to be blood on his shirt.

_Harley stays._

_\- ☁ -_

And Peter leaves.

It isn’t a gradual pulling away, a retreat back into the Parker residence, a gentle letdown- one day, he’s crying into his shirt, leaving bloodstains and tearstains on Harley’s sleeve, and the next, the couch where he’d slept is empty and the windows of his house are dark and covered. The only sign that he’d ever been there is the sudden lack of tissues and the dark circles under Macy’s eyes.

Harley shoves the shirt into the back of his closet, finds it a year later, and sets it on fire.

He uses Johnathan’s lighter. Soaks it in gasoline from the garage when Abby is at school and Macy’s at work and the owner of that little blue Bic is drunk in the kitchen, lets the corner of the fabric, still stained red, catch flame. Sits in the driveway and watches as fire eats it up.

The face of Thomas the Train is consumed. 

_He hasn’t watched that show since he was seven._

_Childish._

\- ☁ -

True to Keener luck, the family drunk leaves the week before Harley’s ninth birthday. He says he’s going to get scratchers and candles for the cake, and Harley- like the little fool he is- believes him. He watches from the window, staring into sheets of dusky rain, and waits to see what colors he’ll pick and if his scratchers will be lucky enough to pay their electrical bill.

And he never comes back.

He never comes back.

The silver Ford Ranger pulls out of the rocky driveway and never returns, it’s owner but a shadow in the driver’s seat, never again to darken Harley’s doorway and leave bruises where nobody will be able to see.

Harley pockets the lighter, loads the long-necked glass bottles into a plastic bag from Macy’s latest grocery trip, and bikes out over backroads and uneven, empty fields. Stops once he reaches his destination- a roaring creek banked by steep stone ridges where the teenagers come to smoke weed and get drunk and do the things that Macy’s warned him against for years.

He screams into that river until his lungs are empty and his throat hurts. The bottles hit the opposite ridge one by one, shattering with pops that sound like gunshots, and with every broken bottle, his scream gets louder and louder and louder.

Jonathan H. Keener is gone.

Benjamin Z. Parker is gone.

Peter B. Parker is gone.

And Harley J. Keener is left behind.

\- ☁ -

_Peter peers out of his curtains on a dark summer night filled with blinking fireflies and twinkling stars. It’s still hard for him to move them, and he can’t see over the windowsill without going up on his tiptoes, but he manages, tucking his chin over the top of the wood so he can see through the latticed screen that keeps mosquitos out of his room._

_The Keener house is lit up, just like it always is, and Harley’s curtains are parted- just like they always are. He can see him doing his homework at his desk, head bent over the paper, lip caught between his teeth._

_As if he can feel Peter’s eyes on his back, Harley sits up straight, whirling around to stare into the dark. The moment their eyes meet, Peter feels a jolt run up his spine._

_It feels like Harley’s eyes, those piercing, electric-blue eyes, are staring straight into his soul. It’s like he’s frozen to the carpet. Glued._

_Turned to stone by Medusa’s gaze._

_With a deep, shuttering breath that practically rattles Peter’s ribcage, he slides those heavy blue curtains closed and goes to bed._


End file.
